On April 18th authorities arrested Lake Alfred City Commissioner Charles Lake 90, of Lake Alfred. Commissioner Lake was charged with 300 Counts Of Child Pornography Possession. Lake has been in city government for many years. His current term expires: April 2027 and he is Seat 2.

Warning Content May Be Disturbing To Some Readers

The following is a long exerpt from the arrest affidavit (It should be noted that this is an unedited, but redacted report of facts by the Law Enforcement. These facts are up for question and everyone is entitled to question the validity of facts by law enforcement in a court of law. The Daily Ridge does not rewrite these facts as some meanings or interpretations could be in error and change context. We hope readers appreciate being able to read the information and come to their own understanding and conclusions) :

“At approximately 1254 hours, the lawful search warrant was executed on the aforementioned residence of Charles Oswald Lake (suspect). During such, REDACTED and your affiant (REDACTED) navigated to the front door of the residence and made contact with the suspect at the front door. REDACTED and your affiant announced ourselves as Detectives with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and informed him a lawful search warrant was being executed on his residence. Notably, the suspect was holding his personal cell phone in his left hand at the time of contact. Upon a pat-down of his person for officer safety, this cell phone was placed on an interior porch bench within the font screened in patio of the home.

At approximately 1258, the residence was cleared and deemed to be secure/safe. At approximately 1309 hours, REDACTED was present when your affiant advised the suspect of his Miranda Warnings from an agency-issued Miranda Warnings card to which the suspect verbally affirmed he understood each of his rights and was willing to speak to detectives. At approximately 1312 hours, your affiant read the lawful search warrant to both the suspect and the residence.

At approximately 1318 hours, REDACTED was present when your affiant conducted an audio/video recorded interview with suspect Charles Oswald Lake. Prior to any investigative questions, your affiant read the suspect his rights a second time from an agency issued Miranda Warning card, and the suspect stated he understood his rights and wanted to speak with detectives.

The following are excerpts of Charles Lake’s statement. This is not intended to be a direct transcript of the interview, merely a summarization of such:

– I (Charles Lake) am 90 years old. My date of birth is 09/17/1933. I live alone at REDACTED in Lake Alfred, FL 33850 – I have lived here since 2008. My personal cell phone number is REDACTED. I have multiple email addresses, but I primarily use either REDACTED REDACTED.

– I have internet through Spectrum (Charter Communications) and have since 2008. My internet is password protected.

– I have a daughter and son who reside in New Jersey.

–  I know a child is anyone under the age of 18.

– I have child porn on my computer. Most of the child porn is saved to an external thumb drive which should be located in my office.

– I do not know how much child porn I possess, but I have been looking at it since I lived in New Jersey (prior to 2008). I only recently began saving it within the last two years but I am not sure why.

– I am a City Commissioner for the City of Lake Alfred and I am always sharing information on Facebook of known scams for residents to be aware of. I began noticing photos and videos pop up on Facebook, Instagram and “Safari” of scantily clad women and transvestites. If you click on them, they will redirect to another page and child porn pops up.

– I was a journalist for years so I was fascinated with child pornography and how it came to exist, such as where it originated from, and why such young children are involved, although I’m certain most of it is originating from overseas due to how the children look.

– I review this material on my computer several times a month, but I watch pornography weekly. I am 90 years old so my sexual fascination/excitement sometimes comes from just looking at the photographs, but I do not masturbate to child porn.

– My devices do not have passwords. All of the child pornography should be on one computer and the thumb drive; it was originally stored on an SD card but I have since deleted it and transferred it to the thumb drive.

– The youngest child pornography file I have seen depicted maybe a 5 or 10-year-old.

– I recently purchased a subscription to Adobe to utilize their cloud storage. I do not photoshop images unless it is to add or remove individuals from City Commissioner meeting photos.

During a search of the residence, a silver Patriot thumb drive was located in an office within the residence. This USB was plugged into a powered off Macintosh desktop. As the USB was removed, it was noted the letters “xxx” were written on the underside of the USB.

During an on scene preview of the above mentioned USB, Detectives located three hundred (300) video/image files depicting children, between 2-years-old and 12-years-old, engaged in sexual acts with adults and/or with other children and or displaying their genitals in a lewd manner. Notably, some of these files contained multiple prepubescent victims.  These image and video files, are in violation of F.S.S. 827.071, as said image and video files contain a child involved in sexual conduct.  

Through this investigation, your Affiant determined the Suspect, Charles Lake, was intentionally viewing and/or in possession of child pornography, in violation of F.S.S. §827.071(5).  Suspect Charles Lake was charged with three hundred (300) counts of possession of child pornography under F.S.S. §827.071.

A description of two (2) of those files is as follows:

Filename: Screen Shot 2018-09-18 at 10.22.05 PM.png

This file depicts a prepubescent female victim, aged between two (2) to five (5) years of age. The victim is fully nude and is laying on her back with her vagina exposed to the camera in a lewd manner as it is within the primary focal point of the photograph. The victim appears to have a clear seemingly liquid substance spread across her labia and torso.

Filename: iMovie Library 1.imovielibrary/10-18-23/Original Media/tn2.jpg

This file depicts two prepubescent victims (male and female), both aged between five (5) to nine (9) years of age. The image depicts the male victim to be laying on a blanketed surface outdoors while fully nude. The male victim’s erect penis is observed from a bottom-up view as the female victim (only donned in pink underwear) is performing fellatio (oral sex) on the male victim’s penis.
      
Per Florida State Statute §775.0847, a violation of §F.S.S. 827.071 shall be reclassified to the next higher degree as provided in subsection (3) if:

(a) The offender possesses 10 or more images of any form of child pornography regardless of content; and
(b) The content of at least one image contains one or more of the following:
1.  A child who is younger than the age of 5
2.  Sadomasochistic abuse involving a child
3.  Sexual Battery involving a child
4.  Sexual bestiality involving a child
5.  Any movie involving a child, regardless of length and regardless of whether the movie contains sound.
(3)(a) In the case of a Felony of the 3rd degree, the offense is reclassified to a felony of the 2nd degree.”